News Article

White House Announces Initiative to Scale Up Investment in Clean Energy Innovation

The Obama Administration is launching a Clean Energy Investment Initiative and announcing a goal to catalyze $2 billion of expanded private sector investment in solutions to climate change, including innovative technologies with breakthrough potential to reduce carbon pollution.

Further clean energy innovation to improve the cost, performance, and scalability of low-carbon energy technologies will be critical to taking action against climate change. Substantial technological progress has been made in recent years in solar photovoltaics, wind power, advanced batteries, energy-efficient lighting, and fuel cells. For example, the cost of solar energy systems has decreased 50 percent since 2010 alone. But additional investment is needed.

Mission-driven investors – such as foundations, university endowments, and institutional investors – can play a catalytic role in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy. A growing number of such organizations have committed to investing in clean energy innovation and solutions to climate change, in pursuit of both financial returns and mission-aligned impact. Today’s announcements will help clean energy investors reduce transaction costs, spread promising investment models, and increase their climate mitigation impact.